XenSource has announced a family of server
virtualisation products based on the open source Xen
hypervisor.
The XenServer product family includes XenEnterprise, an
enterprise-grade package offering x86 server virtualisation of
multiple operating systems, including Windows and Linux.
XenEnterprise has been designed for easy deployment of the Xen
hypervisor and guest virtual servers, allowing installation and
management of multiple guests on the same server, with no imposed
limit to concurrent virtual machines.
The new range also includes XenServer, for Windows standard
server environments, which allows concurrent running of up to eight
virtual machines, and XenExpress, a free product designed to offer
a quick start to Xen virtualisation.
All three products share the same architecture, and are designed
for easy migration and upgrading. The new products also include
code contributions from chip manufacturers Intel and AMD to
optimise Xen performance on their newest CPUs.
In a sign that competition is ramping up in the virtualisation
market, the XenSource announcement came on the same day as Virtual
Iron Software launched version 3.1 of its enterprise-class
virtualisation platform, which offers full support for both
unmodified Windows and Linux.
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